Monday, June 27, 2011

Bread is the foundation of our business. We prepare a variety of other offerings, but flour is our medium and bread is where our meals begin. Nick has had a passion for preparing food since he was a very young; his maternal grandmother ("Gommy") faithfully baked fresh breads and pastries for his mother's family of eight, twice weekly (they couldn't afford to buy from the store). The stories Nick heard from the extended Foster family, and one-on-one baking time with Gommy as he was growing up stayed with him. Gommy passed away when he was 9, and at the age of 15 he began working in restaurants. With no culinary degree and little working baking experience, the sensory memories gleaned from time spent at his grandma's house on baking days inspired our one-and-only bread baker to begin working from her techniques 9 years ago.

AGB's Sesame Semolina and
Whole Wheat Sourdough

Recipes can mean little when you're using just a few basic ingredients. Method is king in bread baking, an intuitive process. When one person is mixing, kneading and baking large quantities, in the finite amount of time required for freshness, a "Surrender to the Flow" is called for (In Nick's case, that means listening to lots of Phish). Crafting bread is an art, make no mistake. Yes, admittedly, anyone can make a loaf but if you've ever tried it, you understand. There are a million different paths one can take: quality and quantities of materials; length of kneading, rising times & baking temperatures; and a huge variety of sourdough concoctions & creative additions all come into effect when creating something as simple, and complex, as bread.

Extremely high-quality ingredients are the King's companion in our view. Here at All Good, that means we use: Champlain Valley Milled flours that are un-enriched, unbleached, contain no GMO and are 100% organic (our White, Wheat & Spelt are from Central NY); Red Star baking yeast, Albany tap water, Kosher Salt and Sugars which vary from: local honey, fair-trade organic raw sugar, molasses, or the trub of a local brewer's mead or India Pale Ale. Our variety of (still relatively young) Sourdoughs contain very little sugars and yeast, allowing the starters to grow naturally. When preparing specialty loaves, we use only organic (or organic-practices) whole grains, oats, cereals, seeds, nuts, vegetables, fruits and local cheeses free of hormones and antibiotics. We source these additions aggressively from hyper-local producers as often as humanly possible. We can't stress enough how important it is to us to use materials that won't make our community of customers ill over time - bread laden with preservatives, chemicals, GMO, unnatural dough conditioners and lab-produced sweeteners like High Fructose Corn Syrup have been found to do exactly that.

Notice the ingredients? 100% Organic White Flour. That's it.

Despite the "healthy" claims of many current, major bread manufacturers,
The UK Daily Mail reported on June 15 that:

"...the Real Bread Campaign, a (UK) non-profit pressure group, claims that bread has actually got worse since 1911 in terms of secret adulterants — enzymes that do not have to be declared on labels — still being smuggled into it. Today, despite the modern fashion for healthy eating, ‘nutritionally empty’ white bread accounts for more than 50 per cent of what we buy.

Crohns.net reports that "Poor food choices not only cause Leaky Gut Syndrome but may lead to food sensitivities as well. Processed foods are low in nutrients and fiber and often contain lots of food additives, unhealthy fats and sugar. This creates an alkaline intestinal pH and a slow waste transit time." If you're gluten-intolerant, have celiac's disease, or other intestinal difficulties, the culprits could be the chemically-produced additives and preservatives that have abounded in mass manufactured foods since the 1950s. False claims from some manufacturers concerning the health benefits of their breads (and other goods) have fooled everyone, but hopefully not for much longer. Sourdough breads, with a starter more than a month old, free from additives are supposedly fairly easily digested by those with a gluten intolerance (the same isn't proven for those with celiac).

"Healthy" food claims may not be provocative, but they sure are popular, whether or not they are true. We gladly accept the additional costs, management, research and time required to acquire our quality ingredients from people we trust. And we won't ever lie to you, the only thing we wash that's green is fresh vegetables (and our compost bin).

So we ask you, what's in your bread? You know what's in ours and if you ever have any questions about any of the ingredients we use, we are always happy to take the time to delve into the details of our food.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Happy Summer Solstice AGB Fans! We spent the Solstice camping and brainstorming new menu items that we want to share with you.

But first: Big Croissant News!

These are made....

with this!

Our faithful sidekick (and CIA graduate), Molasses Meg, and I are beginning the process this week of learning how to make Nick's traditional French Croissants ($2.00-2.50) so that we can offer them to you on Saturdays, in the shop AND at the Delmar Farmers Market! Seriously disappointed faces in search of our croissants have greeted us in Delmar these past few weeks, so we're figuring out how to turn those frowns upside down. We'll start offering Chocolate Croissants as well this weekend (as requested, at both locations) and will come up with other delectable flavors as time goes on. Hopefully it won't take us more than a couple of weeks (under Nick's careful tutelage) to perfect the process and the quality won't suffer from our inexperience. Did you know they are made with chemical and hormone-free Meadowbrook milk & cream, rBGH-free butter from The Country Creamery in Canastota, and organic flour from Central New York? Provided our preparations don't go horribly awry, we'll be bringing croissants to Delmar this weekend and they will be available in the shop Saturdays and Sundays going forward as well.

Hooray! Summer is officially here!
It brings with it all sorts of new fresh vegetables from local farms,
so we are increasing our sandwich options.
(Weekly specials are posted on our Facebook page.)

{special in-shop offer} This Weekend:
Purchase a sandwich or a full salad
and receive 1/2 off a dessert or baked good!(just tell us you read this post)

Grilled Cheese Sliders with R&G cheese & local micro-greens.

To help celebrate and support our local farmers, we'll start by adding a Vegan Sandwich Special($4.00-5.00) to our menu each weekend. Our friends over at Farmer Jon's Produce in Selkirk are visiting the bakery tomorrow with a delivery of freshly picked, sustainable vegetables. We're excited to see what Jon & DJ have coming up that they haven't brought to the markets yet! Nick will decide on this week's new vegan sandwich special then and we'll get that info to you asap on Thursday via Facebook. Please spread the word to your vegan friends.

Our other two Weekly Sandwich Specials are a Grilled Vegetarian($4.00-$5.00 with local produce & cheeses), and Gourmet Grilled Cheese ($3.00 "Not Just Lot Food Anymore!"). For the grilled vegetarian sandwich this weekend, Nick is preparing a trio of sliders - each slider will be different, particulars to follow after farmers' visit. In-house sandwiches are served with a micro-salad to balance your palate. All Sandwiches are available in-house or to-go (wrapped in our compostable, biodegradable parchment).

We are adding a Salad Special to our roster: each weekend, Nick will prepare a Panzanella Salad with Fresh, Seasonal ingredients ($4-4.50, depending on ingredients) that you can take with you or enjoy in the bakery. We also prepare a Foccacia Pizza ($2.50-3.00 per slice) every weekend; again, with local produce & cheeses - see a pattern here?

We're close to the hospitals, campuses and downtown - just 2 blocks off Central Ave (turn at the Linda, we're on the left just after Washington Ave. at 160 Quail St.). Come to All Good Bakers for an affordable, healthy, sustainable lunch!

Starting this weekend, Nick is going to begin baking more "Specialty" loaves in the shop; he'll be focusing less on our "daily" loaves and more on bringing you a better variety of interesting combinations.

Meg is preparing two varieties of Individual Fruit Tarts for us this weekend (available at the shop & the market): Lemon or Peach Raspberry - with organic fruits and handmade crusts! ($3.00-4.00, fruits local if we can get 'em organic and in season). We going to start offering you more light, seasonal desserts now that summer is here. If the tarts go over well, we'll prepare them regularly.

There are a few items we're offering a discount on if you purchase in larger quantity: Baguettes are 2 for $5.00, Bialys 4 for $5.00 and Biscotti is 6 for $6.00.

We hope to start adding homemade, seasoned croutons soon.

If you enjoy our offerings, please bring a friend with you when you visit!
And ask them to bring a friend along, too while you're at it. Our "word of mouth" reputation is growing, but (we won't lie) we could use your help bringing more people into the bakery on a regular basis. Remember, everything we serve, WE make in-house with the freshest, hyper-local, sustainable ingredients (with the help of aforementioned sidekick).

Our new "outdoor cafe" is open, more fresh vegetables are coming in every week, we believe in what we're doing, and we are loving life running our own small business. We hope you'll encourage the people in your circle to come see what we're all about. All Good is open Fridays 11-6, Saturdays 10-4 and Sundays 10-2 (with Quiche, Croissants, French Toast and other brunch specialties). Those of you who are observant may have noticed, we decided to open an hour earlier on Saturdays! A minor expansion, granted, but hopefully it will allow more of you to stop by the shop during your Saturday morning routine.

We look forward to seeing our regulars this weekend and hopefully meeting lots of new faces!